“Intellectual leader of the free world”, Mark Carney is returning Canada to its stature under Lester Pearson. The prime minister’s position on Iran highlights both the absurdity and appropriateness of the superlatives.
According to former foreign affairs minister John Manley, Carney has emerged as the “intellectual leader of the free world.” In “At age 159, Canada is finally a power on the world stage”, Globe and Mail columnist Lawrence Martin quotes Manley as saying while also crowing that “the Carney doctrine has the rest of the world paying attention to our country.”
In another recent bout of Liberal superlative, Oxford historian Margaret MacMillan told CTV on Sunday that Canada’s PM has been “absolutely extraordinary” in defending the liberal order. The former provost at University of Toronto’s Trinity College added, “this is really unprecedented in my lifetime, that a Canadian Prime Minister has had such an impact on the world stage, apart perhaps from Lester Pearson and the senior Trudeau.”
But a quick glance at Carney’s Iran policy highlights the absurdity of suggesting he defends international law or promotes an independent foreign policy. On Tuesday the prime minister was asked about Donald Trump’s threats to “annihilate” and “destroy” Iran. Carney responded by saying Iran is “one of the greatest threats in the current world” and claimed that country poses an “existential threat to Israel and its allies.” After the PM was pressed further about Trump’s genocidal threats Carney justified them by saying, “Well, there is a war underway, and he’s speaking the language of war.”
At the General Assembly on Friday Carney’s foreign minister, Anita Anand, doubled down on inverting the aggressor/aggressed relationship, stating, “Iran is the principal threat to peace and security in its region. It must never acquire a nuclear weapon. Its threats to navigation rights in the Strait of Hormuz are a direct affront to international law.”
Over the past seven months the Canadian government has released dozens of statements criticizing Iran for responding to the aggression against it by striking neighbours hosting US military facilities. Immediately after the US and Israel launched their massive illegal bombing campaign on February 28, the prime minister released a statement expressing “support” for the aggression.
Through NORAD, a base in Kuwait and officer exchanges Canadian soldiers have directly assisted the US. Ottawa has also granted US military planes access to Canadian airspace. Ottawa has also supported the US war drive by isolating Iran diplomatically and by sanctioning several hundred Iranian entities and individuals. On Tuesday Anand announced the latest set of sanctions against the country under assault, with five Iranian individuals and five entities sanctioned under theSpecial Economic Measures (Iran) Regulations.
Any suggestion that Carney upholds international law or a just “liberal order” is absurd. Ditto for the notion that Canada promotes the “free world”.
At the same time, however, the historical reference to Pearson is not incorrect. As I detailed in Lester Pearson’s Peacekeeping: The Truth May Hurt the diplomat turned foreign minister and prime minister backed colonialism and apartheid in Africa, Zionism, coups in Guatemala, Iran and Brazil and the US invasion of the Dominican Republic. Pearson also pushed to send 27,000 Canadian troops to Korea, which justified a massive post-World War II military buildup. Like Carney on Iran, Pearson provided material support to the US war in Vietnam and repeatedly justified horrific violence there.
If the yardstick is Donald Trump, Mark Carney could well be described as an “intellectual leader” of a “liberal order”. But Iran demonstrates how the prime minister has done far more to enable a US president’s belligerence than oppose it. Just like Pearson in his day.
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